Saya Saung Mandalay Palace Moat & Bridge, Burma

An original early 20th-century watercolour painting, Saya Saung, Mandalay Palace Moat & Bridge, Burma.

A beautiful and rare watercolour by the celebrated early Burmese artist Saya Saung (1898–1952) showing the Palace and Moat at Mandalay. Saya Suang's work is highly regarded for its mastery of the watercolour technique and he is the only early Western-style painter who has the honorific 'Saya' (meaning master) attached to his name, a title generally reserved for the painters of the Traditional School in Burma.

Paintings by Saya Suang, and other early 20th-century works by Burmese artists in a similar style, are of great significance to the history of art in Myanmar and the influence of British painting on the arts in Southeast Asia. Saya Suang adopted the Western style of watercolour painting, producing representational landscape paintings en plein air in translucent wash. He, and other artists of the Burmese School, focused on iconic landscapes of Upper Burma—often of the old Mandalay Palace and moat, Mandalay Hill, boats on the Irrawaddy River, or village scenes.

On watermarked J Whatman wove paper.